


My Mind Holds the Key

by Steamcraft



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshee Lydia Martin, Banshee Powers, Eichen | Echo House, F/M, Medical Torture, Post-Season/Series AU, freeform style
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 18:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7903420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steamcraft/pseuds/Steamcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lydia and Peter save each other from Eichen House.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Mind Holds the Key

When they forcefully retain her inside Eichen House, Lydia screams a banshee's wail for the lost souls that were never grieved for.  
  
They attack her at once, begging for attention and answers, wallowing in death.

She's given her first sedative within the first ten minutes.

It doesn’t do anything.

-0-

Peter raises his face to the ceiling, eyes narrowed in thought. Surely his ears are deceiving him.

Behind him a page turns in a book.

"We're not going to cause trouble," his cellmate reminds him.

-0-

The whispers keep her quiet, and the whispers demand she screams. She's trying to listen to all of them.

The man who forges her signature on the detailed information about staying in the facility is supernatural. The voice who tells Lydia this is a middle-aged man.

The orderly who "helps" her to her new room verbally abuses patients. The voice is a boy, no older than Lydia.

A pre-teen girl warns Lydia about the creeping night guard.

A little boy complains of tummy pains and cries for his mother.

-0-

Day crawls into night.

Echo House lives up to its name.

Lydia can't find sleep.

Peter sleeps lightly.

-0-

She's combative in the morning, refusing food from aids that the dead have warned her about. They warn her about the aids, they warn her about the food. They warn her what happens when she refuses food.

Nurses visit before lunch and assess she needs a change in medication.

Lydia is combative with them, too.

-0-

One of the human aids serves their lunch. Peter smells Lydia's distress on their scrubs.

He carefully catalogs it. Thinking too loud gets him in trouble.

"Take care now," Peter smiles and takes the trays.

The aid rolls her eyes. Peter's cellmate chuckles.

-0-

Lydia wakes up on the floor.

When she stands, she sees herself still on the floor.

-0-

Lydia wakes up on the floor, eyes wide and searching her surroundings.

A tray of lunch sits in her cell. To avoid another incident, Lydia ignores the voices and eats her food.

She tastes the psych meds. They won't have any affect on her.

The faculty won't be able to dumb her down.

-0-

It's the same for a week.

Days into nights into days. Orderlies stabbing her with needles, gagging her with pills, forcing her down with restraints.

Nothing works. Lydia ends up with bruises on her wrists and ankles, and track marks up her arms. She hasn't slept peacefully for a few days.

She looks like she lives at Eichen House.

-0-

Lydia slowly spills water from her glass, watching it trickle away from her.

She hears them say Liam's name.

Lydia screams again and fights anew.

-0-

Another banshee wail.

Peter wonders idly what happened to McCall.

"It doesn't matter," answers his cellmate, turning a page in his book.

He ignores him.

A banshee wail is as good as a wolf's howl. The pack of misfits would be able to find her. It's too hard to—

A hand wraps around Peter's throat and squeezes. The hand is his own. Peter gasps, thumping the floor with his other hand.

His cellmate lets him go. Peter doesn't think about Lydia or the True Alpha's pack.

-0-

A therapist has come to visit her but Lydia keeps her lips tight.

She has learned that those working in Eichen House do not work for the good of Beacon Hills. Lydia will tell no tales about Scott.

The therapist doesn't like this.

"Your friends could be in danger if you don't communicate," he reasons, sickly sweet like his smiles. "There are more dangerous forces out there than packs made of alphas, or vengeful spirits."

Lydia thinks back to the last three months and agrees inwardly, but tilts her head to the side.

"Tell me more," she says. "I don't know what you mean."

He smiles wider at her and shakes his finger.

"Now, now, Miss Banshee. Tell me what you really want."

She stares at him.

"How did you know that?"

He laughs at her.

"Eichen House is the registry of creatures like yourself. We've kept a list of names of those who should be here."

"You have a deadpool, still." Lydia deadpans. "That's out of date."

"Have you learned what you're able to do?" He asks instead. "We can train you, for a price."

"Not. Interested."

He laughs and shakes that damn finger again. She wants to break it.

"You will be."

-0-

Every few days, Peter catches a whiff of Lydia's emotional state off some orderlies' uniform.

Not often, but sometimes, he smells her blood.

A frown pulls his lips and he snarls as he accepts the meals from the staff.

"That's not how I taught you how to say thank you."

Peter smiles with fangs.

"That's a little better," remarks his amused cellmate.

-0-

A week meets two, meets three. The moon turns full, and Echo House fills with new sounds coming from the lower levels.

The whispers in her ear are louder this time, more urgent. They warn her about the lower levels, the basement dwellers, the monsters beneath the floorboards.

The lost souls describe beasts and creatures from horror movies. Lydia doesn’t have the heart to deny listening to them.

She realises they don’t understand what she is.

Vampires and wendigos. Lizard men and enormous bird/humanoids with wings instead of arms, with molted skin and feathers. Boogeymen and people with special gifts, people that didn’t belong in society.

Werewolves.

She listens to them speak about Peter Hale.

-0-

It’s the first of the month again.

With his cellmate’s cooperation, he holds Peter prisoner in his own skin.

A nurse shows him a long, thick needle attached to a small syringe. Wolfsbane. She grins a Cheshire smile, watching him struggle with obvious delight.

Peter sweats.

“I’m sure my dosage isn’t that much,” he says weakly.

She ignores him and twirls her hands around.

“What’s special about the new patient? You’ve been thinking an awful lot on her.”

He shrugs, antsy. Scared.

“A banshee in the building? You’d start thinking how to shut her up, too, locked here.”

She laughs and his cellmate chuckles, then she sticks him in the thigh.

-0-

Lydia looks to the floor, expression scrunching in confusion. Surely that was Peter’s howl.

When the aids come back for dinner, she makes a mad dash out of her prison. They’re hot on her tail, and she doesn’t get far.

She scrambles and scratches them.

They bring her to her knees. They bring her back to her cell and restrain her.

Hours later, her water is still out of reach.

-0-

“Are you willing to help us?” the therapist asks.

She watches him spoon out water, and it splatters on the floor. Her throat is parched.

“-o.”

“I can’t hear you, Miss Banshee.”

Another spoonful of water spills. Her mouth is tacky.

“No.”

“A little louder, please.”

Lydia fixes him with a hard stare before turning her head where she can’t see him.

It doesn’t stop the sound of the entire glass being poured out.

-0-

They injected him, waited an hour, and fed him ash.

Rinse and repeat ten times.

Peter vomits each time, trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

He smells the heat of fire.

-0-

Her door is left open and her restraints are undone.

The patter of the community showers echoes down the hall, and without out a thought Lydia is gone.

Clumsily and following the winding hallways, she collapses in a running stall and turns her face into the spray.

The whisper comes a second too late:

Someone grabs her hair and her head connects with the tile.

Lydia watches from afar in disgust as the orderly checks her pulse before picking her from the floor.

He takes her back to her room, lays her on the bed, and Lydia takes a good look at herself.

Her eyes are open and unblinking. There's no life signs, no recognition.

-0-

She startles herself awake.

The only light bulb pops, leaving behind a burnt smell.

-0-

Night surrenders to the day. It’s always a new day.

False smiles. Fake kindness. Masquerading cruel hands as a gentle touch.

In the group circles, Lydia doesn’t miss the flinches from jumpy patients.

The sorrowful moans keep her distracted. Lydia’s gathering a list of all she knows, of what they tell her.

She’ll turn the tables.

Somehow.

-0-

A patient drops a plastic cup.

It clatters on the ground in a familiar pattern that sounds like Malia.

Lydia is compelled to scream.

-0-

Peter paces the cell.

-0-

“What’s happened to them, Lydia?”

She shakes her head.

“I don’t know.”

The therapist is becoming frustrated.

-0-

Peter tilts his head at the new-comer. He’s only seen him once, but he didn’t carry Lydia’s scent, then. Her fear and desperation.

“Be nice to our guest,” his cellmate requests.

The man approaches the Plexiglas prison and bows his head. “I am Doctor—”

“I don’t care who you are, or how many letters are behind your name,” he replies tartly.

His cellmate tuts behind him, flips a page in his book otherwise.

The man shrugs. “Fair enough.”

“Is it, really?” Because it’s not.

“I need you to tell me what you know about the banshee called Lydia Martin.”

Peter cocks his head in the other direction, many thoughts racing through his head.

“Why?” he settles for, first.

“That’s classified.”

He purses his lips, and tries, second, “What’s in it for me?”

“A skipped wolfsbane dose.”

The ash lies thick on his tongue, and Peter tries to swallow it down. He nods at the man.

“Ask me anything.”

-0-

The therapist is smiling again when he makes his return, shaking a finger at Lydia.

“You thought you could keep your secrets, Miss Banshee.”

Blood drains from her face so quick she feels dizzy. She doesn’t want them to know what happened.

Lydia doesn’t want to relive senior year.

“What do you know?” she dares to ask. Compare notes.

“Your mother is human,” he starts for the shock effect. He knows her mother. Who she is. Where she lives, probably.

She grits her jaw and bares blunt teeth. “Good job.”

He smiles his smarmy, dirty smile right back at Lydia. “Tell me, Miss Banshee. Is it so easy to abandon one alpha for another? It must be so easy for you. You’re not like the others. You don’t have a sense for pack or its mentality.”

Lydia blinks, and blinks again. “Excuse me?”

“It must have been so easy,” the therapist repeats, “when the bite didn’t take with Peter Hale, to find True Alpha Scott McCall and see if he could make you a werewolf.”

-0-

“I thought I’ve drilled out your lying schemes,” his cellmate remarks idly, turning another page.

Peter smiles lightly, mirthless. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

-0-

Lydia smiles lightly, knowing. “When death is my only companion, pack and the connections thereof don’t weigh me down.”

The therapist’s grin becomes wider. “You’ll tell me what happened?”

Her gaze becomes hard. “No.”

His frown is quick to form. “You’ve brought this upon yourself, Lydia Martin.”

It makes her heart skip a beat, the whispers telling her to run and hide.

-0-

Faculty members that bring her breakfast grab her in the morning, dragging Lydia from her prison.

She goes shouting into a new room.

A single overhead light focuses on a filling tub, ice cubes floating at the top.

“No!” she screams, fights herself free from the orderlies. They grab her roughly by the arms, and one of them forces her to her knees. The therapist watches this all happen, and she’s damn near ready to beg him. “No, don’t do this!”

Lydia doesn’t want to remember. She doesn’t want to know why she screams.

The therapist frowns at her. “It’s the only way, Miss Banshee. Then, we can train you.”

“I don’t want to learn! I don’t want anything to do with this!”

It’s like she’s a rag doll, speechless and malleable. They push her effortlessly face forward into the tub.

-0-

Lydia runs out of the room as soon as she has the chance, and doesn’t turn back to watch herself drown.

She won’t remember.

They can’t make her.

Lydia follows the whispers, follows the crying and whimpering sounds of the dead to the levels underground. It’s where there’s the most pain and suffering.

They’re beasts, she imagines the staff whisper. They’re creatures. They don’t know pain like the rest of the world.

Lydia despises Eichen House and all that it runs for.

She feels everything.

Taking a spiral staircase, she descends.

-0-

His cellmate looks up from his book for the first time that morning. Peter raises an eyebrow at him.

“An intelligent mind has entered the room,” he says slowly, glancing around the room beyond the prison. “Vulnerable, feminine… Surprisingly stubborn despite being halfway to breaking.”

Peter thinks of her name before he can stop himself.

“So this is the infamous banshee Lydia Martin. If only I was able to pin her down, I’d explore her mind.”

Peter shudders as he looks around, too.

-0-

Lydia holds her hand right in front of Peter’s face. “Never thought I’d be excited to see you again.”

It’s a familiar face in a nightmare realm.

The voices warn her to stay away. The werewolf is dangerous. The man with the third-eye is even more dangerous.

She clacks her chipped nails against the Plexiglas. It makes an echo sound, not unlike being underwater. The comparison makes her flinch.

“That was you yesterday, wasn’t it?” she asks aloud, tracing lines. “Talked with the doctor, fed wrong information.”

Lydia pauses a moment. “I don’t want to remember. I want to get out of here. I need you to help me, Peter.”

-0-

He hears his name. He hears it not with his ears, but in his mind.

Then, Peter realises in a half-formed thought what Lydia has learned. He dares not think about it again.

He lays his hand on the barrier between him and the banshee. He then nods, not seeing the face beyond his cell.

“Help me,” he says out loud, voice breaking slightly.

Being locked away with a creature able to tear away his mental constructs, Peter is left defenseless.

-0-

“I will.” She promises, then leaves. She has to go. She doesn’t know if her body is in danger.

-0-

“Don’t speak to ghosts, Peter,” he cellmate says. “They might stick around like strays.”

-0-

She’s about to take the stairs when the door on the right opens without reason. Lydia takes a step into it.

It’s familiar.

If she tried hard enough, she’d still be able to see the blood on the white walls and tub, still see the corpse with the hole in her head.

Lydia hears the voice, clear as day, right in her ear.

It’s a happy voice, but at the same time it’s remorseful. Excited, encouraging, and shamed.

Lydia stops to listen a while.

She’ll take all the time for her grandmother.

“Sweet, sweet Ariel. Don’t let them take your voices.”

-0-

Lydia ascends the staircase.

-0-

Screaming when she breaks the water’s surface, it doesn’t come with the names of her friends.

The lights burst into a shower of sparks, leaving confusion and a flurry of motion from the orderlies.

Lydia stops her banshee’s cry and lunges forward, listening to the whispers and cries. She takes in everything they say.

She takes their grief and doesn’t scream for them; she fights instead.

The sacrificial bath awakened more than her memories. It brings her wrath.

-0-


End file.
